The Arkansas Razorback baseball team (39-23) overcame a shaky start to beat Liberty, 3-2, in their first game of the NCAA Charlottesville Regional Friday night at Davenport Field, thanks to the bat of their cleanup hitter.

Junior second baseman Brian Anderson went 2-for-3 with a home run, a walk and two RBI for Arkansas.

Chris Oliver (9-4) earned the win on the mound despite walking six batters with two hit batsmen in five innings, but he held Liberty to just two runs. Michael Gunn pitched three scoreless innings, and Jacob Stone held off the Flames in the ninth to earn his fourth save of the season.

Oliver hit Ashton Perritt with the bases loaded in the top of the second to score Liberty's first run, but he eventually recovered and struck out the last next two batters to end the inning with three runners stranded.

Anderson answered in the bottom half with a solo home run over the right field fence off Trey Lambert to tie the game. The home run drove in his 50th run of the season, becoming the first Arkansas player to drive in as many runs since Dominic Ficociello in 2011.

In the fourth, Anderson hit a sharp single through the left side to score Joe Serrano and give Arkansas a 2-1 lead.

Serrano was 1-for-3 with a walk, giving him 20 career hits in NCAA Tournament play. He entered the regional with a .432 batting average in 13 career tournament games.

After loading the bases, Bobby Wernes grounded out to shortstop to score Andrew Benintendi and put the Razorbacks ahead by two.

Liberty scored a run off Oliver in the bottom of the fifth to cut the lead to one, and then threatened in the ninth after a lead-off walk and a sacrifice bunt to move the tying run into scoring position. But Stone forced back-to-back ground balls to preserve the victory.

Arkansas advances in the winner's bracket of the regional, where they will face the host team, Virginia, Saturday night at 7:00 CST. The Cavaliers (45-13) beat Bucknell, 10-1, in their opening game Friday afternoon.

There's a $30,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of a bank robbery trio known as the Black Hat Bandits, suspected in a two-month string of robberies across Maryland and Virginia, the latest coming Monday.